My friend Anthony and I were out taking photos in Chinatown one Thursday night, when we decided to consult good, ol’ Yelp for something good to eat. There were so many four- and five-star options in the Lower East Side that it was hard to choose, but the small plates and small prices of The Stanton Social appealed to us and our wannabe-struggling-artist sensibilities.

Both the dining room downstairs and all of the tables upstairs were full, so we were ushered to the lounge area by the very friendliest Pennsylvania-born server ever to work in New York City. The long, low couches and tiny tables made a fine dining area for such an informal meal, but with only candlelight to work with, I’m afraid my pictures are severely lacking. Try to look past them, because they do the meal no justice.

skillet roast octopus: chorizo, garlic, sherry vinegar ($12)

I wouldn’t have ordered this on my own due to still being a newborn when it comes to eating seafood, and I didn’t walk away from it feeling like it really opened my eyes to octopus or anything, but it certainly wasn’t unenjoyable. The chunks of meat were a little chewier than I would’ve liked, but the contrast of the extra-crunchy bread was nice. Anthony seemed to think this was more excellent than I did, so maybe a real seafood-lover wouldn’t be as picky as I am.

Rhode Island style lobster roll ($9)

I guess I need to amend my admission that I’m not a real seafood-lover, because I am a real lover of lobster, especially lobster rolls. This was your usual chunky, creamy filling, but it had the advantage of a sturdy, pretzel-type bread and pickles. I understand that lobster rolls traditionally come with a pickle spear on the side, but to actually have the pickle in the roll somehow seemed like a great advancement in lobster roll technique. This was a pretty hefty price tag for two bites of sandwich, but it was certainly more delicious than the $12 and $16 rolls I’ve had.

Kobe Philly ($9)

Another great twist on a classic, with truffle and goat cheese fondue topping thin slices of tender Kobe beef. I might have actually liked this better than the lobster because its richness made the one bite I got seem more hearty and filling.

potato and goat cheese pierogies ($9)

We didn’t order these, but I’m glad our server thought we did, because their menu description belied their deliciousness. I think of pierogies as homey but a little bland, but with those caramelized onions, chives, and truffle creme fraiche, they were like eating a baked potato with the works. The truffle in the creme fraiche was so perfectly warming on a rainy, chilly night, but the flavor somehow managed not to overpower the all-important chives.

duck confit pizzetta ($14)

This mini pizza had a great part-crunchy, part-chewy crust loaded up with tender, flavorful duck, sweet figs, and funky blue cheese. It tasted very composed, with plenty of every ingredient and just the right amount of each.

French onion soup dumplings ($12)

I want to describe these as my new reason for living but don’t want you to think me an overexaggerator. Never was an escargot plate used better than to house these six soup dumplings. If you’ve ever had the classic Chinese soup dumplings filled with pork or shrimp, these will seem familiar to you for the one second it takes for the skin to pop in your mouth and the French onion soup to spill out. The layer of melted cheese and the speared crouton on top of each were true to form, but the dumplings were so good on their own I would’ve been entirely happy even without them. Next time, I plan to eat five orders of these myself and still follow it up with one of Stanton Social’s enticing desserts.

The Stanton Social isn’t exactly cheap–two of us spent $120 with one drink apiece for a few bites of a few dishes–but being delighted by the flavor combinations over and over again made it seem worthwhile. I’m still thinking about the gush of those soup dumplings, that rich truffle cream, and the tang of blue cheese on fig weeks later. Even while relegated to the lounge, we got a good taste of our surroundings–candlelight, white furniture and dark woods, and a nightclubby vibe with beautiful people to match. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t really have to put out good food to draw a crowd, and yet everything tasted like some nerd back in the kitchen was hard at work, trying to impress the pretty people.

It was just a couple of months ago that my boyfriend found a rudimentary menu for the soon-to-be famous Meatball Shop, and now the place has totally blown up into what you might call a phenomenon. And I love a gimmick as much as the next guy, so a co-worker and I rode the bus from our office in Battery Park up to the Lower East Side recently to give the balls a go.

The restaurant itself is all dark wood and old-timey feel, very small with a storefront entirely made of glass so that it gets plenty of natural light and air. The kitchen takes up the entire back wall and is also open so that you can see your meat being freshly-ground and your balls being freshly-formed.

My whole wheat hero with pork meatballs, spicy meat sauce, and mozzarella probably lost a lot of its freshness on its way back to the office, but that didn’t matter one bit. This wasn’t the biggest meatball parm I’ve had, nor the sauciest, but I’ve never had one made with better ingredients. Even the mixed greens salad with sliced pears and chives was worth talking about.

As usual, a small menu is a better menu when it means the chef can do a few things really well rather than a bunch of things mediocrely, and executive chef Daniel Holzman has meatballs down

Note: Everyone who tried my pork meatballs agreed that they were better than the chicken ones, so you know what to order.

Evidently finally seeing my review of our first dinner at wd~50 made my boyfriend crave some foams and powders, so before we left for Christmas vacation in our respective home states, we made a reservation to return. The only time we could get on Saturday night, even with a few weeks notice, was 6 p.m. Which means that despite the terrible economy, New Yorkers are still lining up to pay $200 each for dinner.

We were oddly seated in the same exact table as last time, which happens to have a straight view into the kitchen, where we saw chef/owner Wylie Dufresne talking to Chef de Cuisine Jon Bignelli (who we recently saw on an episode of “Chopped” on the Food Network) all night. We started off with a couple of their inventive cocktails to give me the courage to eat the many fish courses (CAVIAR?!) that were coming our way, and then we ate:

Red snapper, pickled taro, wakame (seaweed), dandelion coulis

All of these things on their own–meh. All of these things together in one bite–harmony.

Everything bagel ice cream, smoked salmon threads, crispy cream cheese

That’s right–the second dish was ice cream. Perfectly flavored and made to look like a tiny everything bagel. The salmon had the consistency of a Brillo pad, but I didn’t find that to be entirely unpleasurable. The crunchy cream cheese shard really excited me but was sadly entirely lacking in flavor. Next time, I’m asking for a warm cream cheese drizzle over my bagel.

Foie gras with passion fruit center, chinese celery

We just loved the way the passion fruit spilled out like an egg yolk. This was so rich it was almost hard to eat, which is exactly how I like my food. The passion fruit overpowered everything else, which was good for someone like me who isn’t completely sold on organ meats but probably bad for a foie gras connoisseur.

Scrambled egg ravioli, charred avocado, kindai kampachi

I somehow expected the egg cube to be cold, but the firm outside shell held a warm, almost custard-like eggy inside. Egg and avocado, it turns out, are wonderful bedmates.

Cold fried chicken, buttermilk ricotta, Tabasco and honey, American sturgeon caviar

Why is there caviar in my comfort food?! I didn’t think it necessarily added anything, and the dish sure didn’t need anything. The chicken appeared to be a terrine of dark and white meat, and the buttermilk ricotta was studded with the crispiest chicken skin.

Langoustine, licorice-style red pepper, black sesame, shiso

We both loved the way this tasted like it was poached in butter, but we agreed that it need some spice. The carpet of black sesame really made the dish.

Beef consommé and Bearnaise gnocchi

The menu simply said “beef and Bearnaise”, so I was looking forward to a hunk of flesh and some sauce to dip it in, but things are never that simple at wd~50. Despite the initial weirdness, this turned out to be the favourite savory dish for both of us.

Lamb loin, black garlic romesco, dried soybeans, basil

Dried soybeans should be in every dish. The crunch of them was so perfect with the melt-in-your-mouth lamb.

Spruce yogurt, shattered vanilla-mango ice cream, vanilla bean olive oil, mango

Yogurt that tastes like the forest? Yes, please! The spruce taste was so delicate–not nauseatingly pine-y, as we were expecting–that we needed to taste the yogurt on its own to catch it. I could’ve definitely gone for more of it, but I’m glad it didn’t slap me in the face.

Hazelnut tart, coconut, chocolate, chicory foam

Chicory is about as bitter as it comes on its own, but spread on top of the mousse-filled chocolate skin, it provided a great balance to all of the sweetness. And the salt on top! To think there was a time before salted chocolate. This was definitely my favourite dessert of the night.

Caramelized brioche, apricot seed shards, buttercream, lemon thyme sorbet

This was delicious, but the Degustation caramelized brioche has ruined me for all other caramelized brioches. Sorry, Wylie.

Cocoa packets, chocolate-shortbread-covered milk ice cream

The idea of milk ice cream is hilarious to us. So, um, you basically mean ice cream without any added flavorings, right? Thought so. It’s too bad that the cookie overpowered the ice cream, because I’d love to see what that tastes like. The classic chocolate packets–like Fruit Roll-Ups made out of chocolate–were actually better than we remembered them, even after I spilled half of the crunchy chocolate crumbs inside all over my lap.

The thing we think is funny about wd~50 is that the plate in front of you is generally full of familiar flavors, yet you know that the food on it went through several transformations involving plenty of chemicals. You have to ask yourself at some point, “Is it worth it?” I can understand why people who aren’t into novelty would make fun of this sort of food–expensive, tiny, laborious–but I just love the sort of deconstructionism of it. Beef consommé and Bearnaise gnocchi look and feel nothing like a steak with Bearnaise sauce, but they taste nearly identical, and you have to appreciate the craft that goes into that.

It kind of bothers me, actually, thinking that someone couldn’t like this meal. Once you get past the fact that nothing you’re eating looks like its original form, you have to admit that everything tastes great, and taste is obviously the most important attribute. When it comes to molecular gastronomy, I guess, an open mind is a prerequisite to an open mouth.

It was more than a year ago that I announced my impending trip to wd~50 on my personal blog and got a load of comments from my mostly-Ohioan readership that mostly talked about how ridiculously small and not-at-all-like-real-food the dish in the picture I posted was. I was skeptical, too, to be honest, but it turned out that the meal was fantastic–really, really fantastic–surprising, playful, and memorable.

It must have overwhelmed me so much, though, that I failed to write about it, and my boyfriend has been bothering me about it ever since. Now that we have a January reservation to try the current tasting menu, I figured I owed it to him to at least post my photos from the evening. Here’s all I can remember from September 13th, 2008:

I started out the night with a peanut butter and jelly cocktail that was more peanut than peanut butter, but the bold flavor really prepared me for what was to come. We ordered one appetizer, two entrees, and the three-course dessert tasting menu, but the waiter brought us the five-course dessert tasting on the house. (Which makes this review entirely biased, naturally.)

Fried quail, banana tartar, peppercress

Sweetbreads, peanut, beet-pomegranate sauce, pickled sweet potato

Wagyu flat iron, coffee gnocchi, coconut, cipollini, sylvetta

Something foamy and possibly celery-y that I can’t recall

Grapefruit curd, pine nut, meringue, nasturtium ice cream

Jasmine custard, black tea, banana

Toasted coconut cake, carob, smoked cashew, brown butter sorbet

Yuzu ice cream, marcona almond, chocolate packets

The service was great, and the waiter didn’t mind repeating the word nasturtium for me about a hundred times until my boyfriend said he’d explain later. Like everyone else, we were impressed that chef Wylie Dufresne was actually in the kitchen, although my boyfriend happened to be directly in his line of sight and felt a little uncomfortable with the way Wylie was making eyes at him all night.

The decor was dark and simple, which made for a lovely contrast with the bright and complex food being served. Plus, there seemed to be a spotlight pointed directly at each table, which is why you basically never see a bad wd~50 photo.

I understand that looking at the menu alone, the dishes are a little intimidating, and the flavor combinations aren’t immediately complimentary (sweetbreads and beets?!). After my first meal there, though, I’m convinced that Wylie can do no wrong, and I’m excited to eat more ridiculous food (and less ridiculous ones, like the caramel apple) next month when we try the new tasting menu.